Vermont

Green Mountain

Vermont is a coined name, meant to render “Green Mountains” in French, from vert and mont, honoring the range that runs the length of the state and the Green Mountain Boys. The earliest documented use is an April 11, 1777, broadside from Philadelphia by Dr. Thomas Young, addressed “To the Inhabitants of Vermont, a Free and Independent State.” The new state had nearly been called New Connecticut. Later stories crediting French explorers or a clergyman’s christening of “Verd-Mont” in 1763 have no support in the record, and a 1786 petition signed by Thomas Chittenden, Ethan Allen and Joseph Fay credited Young with the name.

Fourteen years on its own

Vermont did not start as one of the thirteen colonies. In 1777 it declared itself an independent state and adopted its own constitution while both New York and New Hampshire claimed its land. That constitution banned slavery and dropped property requirements for male voters. Vermont governed itself for 14 years until a state convention ratified the US Constitution on January 10, 1791, and Congress admitted it as the 14th state on March 4, 1791. The state’s Latin motto, adopted in 2015, recalls that place in line: Stella quarta decima fulgeat, “May the 14th star shine bright.”

Montpelier

For its first three decades Vermont’s legislature had no fixed home and met in more than a dozen towns, among them Windsor, Bennington and Rutland. In 1805 it made Montpelier its permanent seat, on condition that the town finish a capitol by 1808, and lawmakers have met there ever since. Montpelier is the smallest state capital in the country, and its State House, with a gilded dome and chambers still in their original condition, is a National Historic Landmark. The capital page tells the story.

Freedom and Unity

The motto, “Freedom and Unity,” is part of the state’s coat of arms and seal. The seal, designed by Ira Allen and accepted in 1779, shows a pine tree with a sheaf of grain and a cow among wooded hills, and the coat of arms, on the blue state flag since 1923, adds blue mountains, a buck’s head and crossed pine branches.

Maple, clover and the Morgan horse

Vermont has 31 official state symbols, many tied to its farms and forests. The sugar maple is the state tree and maple, from the Vermont sugar maple, the official state flavor. The hermit thrush is the state bird, the red clover, a nod to the state’s dairy heritage, the state flower, and the Morgan horse the state animal. Milk is the state beverage, apple pie the state pie and the Gilfeather turnip, bred on a farm in Wardsboro, the state vegetable. Vermont names three state rocks, marble, granite and slate. See them all on the Vermont symbols page.

Land and people

Vermont covers 9,616 square miles, 45th among the states, and had about 645,000 residents in 2025, 49th in the country, ahead only of Wyoming. It borders New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and Canada to the north. Burlington, with about 44,000 people, is the largest city, followed by South Burlington, Rutland, Essex Junction and Winooski.